Institute for America's Future

Institute for America's Future

The Institute for America’s Future is a center of nonpartisan research and education devoted to shaping a compelling progressive agenda and message. We strive to open up the space for new thinking and bold reforms on such kitchen-table concerns as the availability of good jobs, affordable health care, accessible higher education, retirement security, improved public infrastructure, living wages, healthy workplaces, safe food, fair trade and clean energy.

Through such events as our Washington conference and regular backgrounders, IAF acts as a convener of progressive leaders to encourage the adoption of a common economic agenda and message so that our collective voices echo powerfully. We then each day equip Americans with the tools and information needed to drive issues into the national debate, challenge failed conservative policies and build support for the progressive vision of a government that is on the side of working people.

We are also an incubator of national campaigns in which progressives join together to form policies that advance economic prosperity and opportunity for lower- and middle-income Americans. As such, the Institute is uniquely positioned to play a key role in shaping the next phase of the debate on an economy that works for working Americans.

Board of Directors

Baye Adofo-Wilson

Lincoln Park/Coast Cultural District, Inc. (LPCCD)

Warren Beatty

Mulholland Productions

Susan Bianchi-Sand

Marcy Carsey

Carsey-Werner, LLC

Robert Johnson

Impact Artist Management

Charles Rodgers

New Community Fund

John Sweeney

AFL-CIO

Margery Tabankin

The Streisand Foundation

Katrina vanden Heuvel

The Nation

Scott Wallace

Wallace Global Fund

Roger Wilkins

Clarence J. Robinson Professor Emeritus, George Mason University

Mission

The Institute for America’s Future is a center of nonpartisan research and education devoted to shaping a compelling progressive agenda and message. We strive to open up the space for new thinking and bold reforms on such kitchen-table concerns as the availability of good jobs, affordable health care, accessible higher education, retirement security, improved public infrastructure, living wages, healthy workplaces, safe food, fair trade and clean energy.

We equip Americans with the tools and information needed to drive issues into the national debate, challenge failed conservative policies and build support for the progressive vision of a government that is on the side of working people.

We’re spearheading the development of a compelling progressive economic agenda and message. We convene progressive leaders to encourage the adoption of a common economic agenda and message so that our collective voices echo powerfully.

Finally, we are an incubator of national campaigns in which progressives join together to form policies that advance economic prosperity and opportunity for lower- and middle-income Americans.

Co-Founders

About Robert Borosage

Robert L. Borosage is the founder and president of the Institute for America’s Future and co-director of its sister organization, the Campaign for America’s Future. The organizations were launched by 100 prominent Americans to develop the policies, message and issue campaigns to help forge an enduring majority for progressive change in America.
Mr. Borosage writes widely on political, economic and national security issues. He is a Contributing Editor at The Nation magazine, and a regular blogger on the Huffington Post. His articles have appeared in The American Prospect, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He edits the Campaign’s Making Sense issues guides, and is co-editor of Taking Back America (with Katrina Vanden Heuvel) and The Next Agenda (with Roger Hickey).

About Roger Hickey

Roger Hickey the co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, a center for ideas and action that works to build an enduring majority for progressive change. Over the history of CAF, Hickey has played a leadership role in major efforts to protect and expand the US social insurance system. He helped to lead a series of coalitions devoted to defending Social Security and Medicare from those who would privatize or cut those important programs. And he was one of the founders of Health Care for America Now!, a broad coalition that won the first major reforms aimed at quality affordable health care for all.

990 Filings

The Form 990 provides the public with financial information about a given organization, and is often the only source of such information. It is also used by government agencies to prevent organizations from abusing their tax-exempt status.

Accomplishments

The Institute for America’s Future has served as a convener, strategy center and incubator for the progressive movement. Many of the programs and proposals that are at the center of today’s economic debate were either started or nurtured through the Institute’s work.

We launched the Apollo Alliance that enabled labor, environmentalists and community leaders to speak with one voice on energy and jobs. The Apollo Alliance helped put the concept of “green jobs” on the national agenda.

We established Health Care for America Now! to support the passage of health care reform and monitor its implementation. “

We successfully fought the conservative effort to privatize Social Security during the Bush administration, then created Social Security Works to protect and improve the economic status of disadvantaged and at-risk populations.

We anchored the coalition that passed the largest college funding initiative since the GI Bill.

We played a key role in launching a new, independent “American Dream” movement, providing the underpinning for its message of “jobs, not cuts.”

Our signature conferences have gathered activists and leaders from across the country to frame core issues and highlight progressive capacity and leadership.

We commissioned polls, published reports and launched initiatives such as a “Jobs, Not Austerity” statement signed by 350 eminent economists, to successfully demonstrate that the people and the experts side with progressive economic policies.

We have reached millions of people – and built an engaged community – through our daily emails, posts on our website, teleconferences and briefings, where we disseminate progressive responses and policy prescriptions for a sustainable course forward.

Staff

Directors

Robert Borosage

Co-Director

Robert L. Borosage is a co-director and co-founder of the Campaign for America’s Future and the Institute for America’s Future. At CAF, Borosage convened the Apollo Alliance coalition that brought unions and environmentalists together to popularize “green jobs” and assembled a Citizens Commission that developed a detailed plan to prove austerity was not needed to reduce the deficit. A graduate of Yale Law School, Borosage left the practice of law to found the Center for National Security Studies in 1974. In 1979, Borosage became director of the Institute for Policy Studies. In 1988, Borosage left the Institute to serve as senior issues advisor to the presidential campaign of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. In 1989, Borosage founded the Campaign for New Priorities, enlisting over 100 national organizations in the call to reinvest in America in the post-Cold War era. Borosage is the founder and chair of Progressive Majority, dedicated to recruiting, training and supporting progressive candidates for local, state and national offices. He is the founder and chair of ProgressiveCongress.org, providing a bridge between the progressive community and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He serves on the board of IPS, the Blue Green Alliance and several other progressive organizations. Borosage’s articles on progressive action and economic fairness appear regularly in the Nation, Politico, the Huffington Post, and on OurFuture.org.

Roger Hickey

Co-Director

Roger Hickey is co-director and co-founder of the Campaign for America’s Future and the Institute for America’s Future. Over the history of CAF, Hickey has played a leadership role in major efforts to protect and expand the US social insurance system. He helped to lead a series of coalitions devoted to defending Social Security and Medicare from those who would privatize or cut those important programs. And he was one of the founders of Health Care for America Now!, a broad coalition that won the first major reforms aimed at quality affordable health care for all. Hickey was a founder and communications director of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that looks at economics from the point of view of working Americans. He was also a founder of the Public Media Center in San Francisco, which helps advocacy organizations come up with media campaigns that will successfully effect social change. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Hickey began his career in the 1960s as an organizer for the Virginia Civil Rights Committee. Hickey has been a frequent guest on television news programs and on such prominent websites as The Huffington Post.

Editors

Staff

Jeff Bryant Associate Fellow at Campaign for America’s Future and owner of a marketing and communications consultancy in Chapel Hill, NC. He has written extensively about public education policy.

Stan Collender
Stan Collender is a former New Yorker who, after getting a graduate degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley, moved to Washington to get it out of his system. That was 35 years ago.

Richard (RJ) Eskow is a well-known blogger and writer, a former Wall Street executive and a former musician. He has experience in health insurance and economics, occupational health, risk management, finance, and IT.

Sara Robinson is one of the few trained social futurists in North America. Her skill set includes trend analysis, scenario development, futures research, social change theories, systems thinking, and strategic planning.

Staff

Brian Albert

Chief Operating Officer

Brian Albert is the Chief Operating Officer for Campaign for America’s Future, overseeing such administrative and financial functions as accounting, facilities management, legal/contracts, information technology, board of directors, human resource management and benefits administration. Albert started at CAF in 2004, after TomPaine.com, a group where he held the same position, merged with the Institute for America’s Future. Prior to that, he worked in nonprofit and consumer advocacy organizations where he focused on fundraising, membership development, marketing, accounting and human resource management. Some issues that motivate him are health care, green jobs and economic equality. He graduated from Amherst College, where he studied religion and Spanish, and received an MBA from George Washington University. Originally from Massachusetts, Albert has lived in the District since 1989.

Jeff Bryant

Writer

Jeff Bryant is an associate fellow at Campaign for America’s Future. Originally from Dallas, Texas, he started working with CAF in 2011. In addition to his work with CAF, Bryant runs a marketing and communications consultancy from Chapel Hill, N.C., working with Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, the National Museum for Women in the Arts and other prominent nonprofits. In addition to these groups, he has also worked with PBS and National Geographic. At CAF, he writes and participates in panels focused on education policy. He has been working on an advocacy platform for the Education Opportunity Network, supported by a partnership of Opportunity to Learn and Institute for America’s Future. Though education is his primary focus at CAF, he also works to advance human rights through the progressive movement. Bryant was raised in a Goldwater Republican household, and his father was the first Republican county judge elected in Texas since Reconstruction. He credits his MFA in creative writing for changing his worldview.

Richard Eskow

Writer

Richard (RJ) Eskow is a well-known blogger and writer, a former Wall Street executive, an experienced consultant, and a former musician. He has experience in health insurance and economics, occupational health, benefits, risk management, finance, and information technology. He has a somewhat unique perspective on the current financial crisis, since he worked for AIG for a number of years (although not in its infamous Financial Products division). He has experience in financial and data analysis, systems design, operations, management, and long-range forecasting. He is among “fifty of the world’s leading futurologists” whose “hopes, fears, and best predictions” are collected in a 2011 book entitled “The Rough Guide to the Future.” He is also one of three “previously unknown” bloggers credited with helping The Huffington Post achieve its success in Eric Boehlert’s landmark book on blogging and politics. As an (occasionally) working musician and songwriter, he has appeared regularly at venues such as CBGB’s and the Washington Folk Festival; his most recent major musical appearance was as the “opening act” for Gen. Wesley Clark at a Democratic Party fundraiser in 2007.

Jasmine Goodrich

Senior Development Manager

Originally from northern Indiana, she came to CAF in February 2012 after graduating from Indiana University the previous May with a degree in African American and African Diaspora Studies and Sociology. She relocated to Washington, D.C., to manage several campaigns for groups such as the AARP and Amnesty International, and was an event assistant with the National Partnership for Women and Families. At CAF, Goodrich is involved in fundraising, donor engagement and event planning. Her interests include civil rights, women’s rights, and animal rights. An active volunteer in her community and church, she enjoys playing the piano and violin, reading feminist literature, and shopping. She lives with her two guinea pigs in Alexandria, Va.

Terrance Heath

Web Producer

Heath became one of the first “professional bloggers” when he joined the staff EchoDitto as Blog Master – just six months after launching his own blog in 2003. While at EchoDitto, Heath served as chief blogging “evangelist” and advisor to a wide range of corporate, union, and organizational clients, and helped develop and refine the best practices many companies and organizations use in their online outreach. Heath’s personal blog, The Republic of T., has won several awards and has been featured by various media outlets, including CNN, BBC Radio, Newsday, NPR and The Washington Post Express. His writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, Alternet, The Bilierico Project, The Washington Blade, and Metro Weekly. In addition to blogging, Terrance has been a longtime activist and advocate on LGBT equality and HIV/AIDS issues. He lives in Maryland.

Charlyne Ivory

Office Manager/Accounting Assistant

Charlyne Ivory brings to the role of office manager a background in hotels and property management. Originally, she is from the Tidewater, Va., area, where she attended Norfolk State University and received her BA in administration.

Dave Johnson

Writer

Dave Johnson of Redwood City, Calif., is a fellow at Campaign for America’s Future, writing about American manufacturing, trade and economic/industrial policy. He is also a senior fellow with Renew California. Johnson has more than 20 years of technology industry experience, including positions as CEO and VP of marketing. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic. He was also a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers. More recently, he helped co-found a company developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the U.S.

Eric Mills

Chief Financial Officer

Eric Mills has worked for Campaign for America’s Future since March 2005. Prior to his joining CAF, he worked for 13 years at the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, first as their senior accountant, controller and then as their chief financial officer. He received a B.S from Bowie State University in accounting, and received his CPA certification in 1989.

Isaiah J. Poole

Director of Online Communications

Isaiah J. Poole is the editor of OurFuture.org and Campaign for America’s Future’s director of online communications. He joined CAF in 2006. Previously he had worked for 25 years in mainstream media, most recently at Congressional Quarterly, where he covered congressional leadership and tracked major bills through Congress. Most of his journalism experience has been in Washington as both a reporter and an editor on topics ranging from presidential politics to pop culture. His work has put him at the front lines of ideological battles between progressives and conservatives. Some of his motivating issues are economic justice, civil and human rights, gay and lesbian rights, and addressing poverty. Poole served as a founding member of the Washington Association of Black Journalists and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. He is married and living in Washington.

Bill Scher

Senior Writer and Blog Managing Editor

Bill Scher is the author of “Wait! Don’t Move To Canada!: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America.” One of the original liberal bloggers, he founded LiberalOasis.com in 2002. He is the co-host of “The LiberalOasis Radio Show” podcast and “The DMZ” at Bloggingheads.tv. He has been published by the New York Times, The New Republic, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Omaha World-Herald and In These Times, and has made appearances on CNN and NPR, among other broadcast outlets. Most recently, he has been writing a regular column for The Week magazine and has begun appearing regularly on MSNBC. He has been with the Campaign for America’s Future since 2007, focusing on clean energy and health care among other issues. He is married with two children and lives in Northampton, Mass.